Rostov Finift
Rostower Finift ( Russian Ростовская финифть / Rostower Emaille ) is a painting with ceramic colors on lacquered copper sheet. These handicrafts are known in Russia under the old Russian name Finift ( Russian Финифть ) - for enamel . The word “Finift” is derived from the Greek fingitis - “bright, shiny stone”. Most famous in Russia is Finift from Rostov . Since the production of enamel work in Rostov has a centuries-old tradition, the enamel work from Rostov is valued as the best in Russia.
This miniature painting on enamel is made from transparent, fire-retardant paints that are applied to copper and covered with enamel. Finift, also known as "fire painting", never fades or loses its shine, like all enamel or glass work.
These are figures, small crosses, portraits, miniature paintings, caskets, icons, jewelry and decorative objects made using the enamel technique. These enamel works were also made to decorate icons, coats of arms and luxury items.
Today jewelry, thimbles, caskets, incense containers (Russian Ладанка ) - these small containers are worn on a necklace, similar to an amulet -, hand mirrors, hair clips, portraits that are made from photos, paintings, rings, earrings , necklaces, Bracelets, watch straps , medallions , brooches made from Finift.
execution
The enamel is colored with metal salts: Additions of gold give the glass a ruby red color, cobalt gives a cobalt blue tint and copper a green color. In addition to the basic material copper as the metal carrier layer, other metals are occasionally used.
In contrast to glass, the gloss of the enamel can be subdued for special designs. The Finift items are particularly durable. The colors are very pure and have a strong glow.
Enamel painting is similar in its technique to porcelain painting . The fireproof paints used have a melting point of 700 to 800 ° C. The color pigments are mixed with turpentine or lavender oil and applied with very fine brushes for painting. Each color pigment has its own melting temperature, and the color pigments also change their colors during firing, which is why the artists work with a color ring made from fired samples to compare colors. All colors are gray before firing. Enamel production is harmful to the painter's health, as these enamel paints consist of heavy metal oxides and contain arsenic and radioactive elements. However, these pollutants evaporate during the burning process.
After a few colors have been applied, the enamel work is fired in the muffle furnace before the next colors are applied. In addition to the three firings for the primer, simple jobs that only require a limited color palette are painted in just two to three firings. For more complicated work, the actual picture is painted in four to seven fires. After each painting, the paint must first dry before it is fired, after which the work must first cool down before it can be painted again. The enamel work may then be further processed by a jeweler - with gold frames or filigree work.
For enamel pictures, the metal surface is primed and then covered with a few layers of white enamel. With miniature works, the back is also covered with enamel. So that the supporting metal surface does not burn through in the numerous fires, it is enamelled on both sides. So also prevents the enamel due to voltage differences between the metal base and the enamel jumps . For miniature work, the color pigments are mixed with essential oils . Often the enamel work is then burned with a transparent layer of enamel (fondant).
history
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The art of enamelling metal objects came to Russia from the Byzantine Empire in the 10th century , along with the adoption of Christianity. The close contacts between Kievan Rus and Constantinople , the capital of the Byzantine Empire, led Russian artists to adopt enamel technology from the Byzantine Empire in the 12th century. The first Russian enamel objects date from the 12th to 13th centuries. Enamel art reached its heyday in Russia in the 16th to 17th centuries.
The jewelers from Rostov had already mastered the production of this artistically designed enamel in the 12th century, at the time of the Kievan Rus . Ornate enamel work was valued just as much as precious stones, also because they kept their purity, color and luster forever. Miniature paintings in enamel went very well with filigree work . They were also an ideal complement to jewelry. In addition to the figures, portraits and landscapes have also been made in enamel since the middle of the 19th century.
Before the enamelling trade found widespread use in Rostov, there were enamel painting centers in Moscow, Sergiev Posad and Saint Petersburg . The performing arts and architecture flourished in Rostov in the second half of the 17th century . At that time, builders and artists from Russia came to Rostov to carry out commissioned work. One of the first artists who produced enamel work in Rostov, and who is mentioned in old letters, was Ieromonachos Amfilochi (Russian иеромонах Амфилохий ; * 1749; † 1824), with the secular name Andrei Porezki ( Андрей Порецкий 1780 worked as an icon and fresco painter in Rostov.
In the first two centuries it was mainly the church that ordered Finift. She subsidized this craft and therefore determined the motives. The church leaders promoted the development of enamel manufacture, as they brought considerable income to the monasteries, which was used for the renovation of old and new churches and monasteries. Finift paintings adorned the iconostases , the Tsar's gate of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow and bishop's hats .
In Rostov, enamel work was only made from the middle of the 18th century, since the time of the metropolitan Arseni Mazeewitsch (* 1697 in Wolodymyr-Wolynskyj ; † 1772 in Tallinn ). Even after the center of the Rostov eparchy was relocated to Yaroslavl in 1788 , enamel production remained in Rostov. Although the city lost its importance as an administrative center, it nonetheless remained the spiritual capital and an important place of pilgrimage for Russia. The enamel work from Rostov became popular souvenirs for the pilgrims . They were lighter and therefore cheaper to make than the traditional icons, and also small and durable. In addition, they could not be harmed by light, heat, moisture or dirt.
The center of enamel production in Rostov was the Jakowlewski Monastery (Russian Яковлевский монастырь ) and the associated settlement. This monastery was the main attraction for the pilgrims. The icons of Dimitri Tuptalo , who was canonized in 1757 , were the most sought-after among pilgrims. His icons in particular were enameled en masse in Rostov and sold to pilgrims, monasteries and churches across Russia. The enamellers in Rostov used the opposite perspective for the three-dimensional representation , as was also common in icon painting. The art of enamel painting was often passed on in the family. The most famous family dynasties of the Rostov enamellers included the Gwosdrew ( Гвоздревы ), Metelkin ( Метелкины ) and Burow ( Буровы ) families . Due to a lack of written evidence, however, individual works cannot be assigned to the individual artists of that time. Only some of the works by the Rostov enamel artists are signed. Dating the works is also extremely difficult.
The enamel paintings from the 18th century were executed in the style of icon painting. Since the beginning of the 19th century, however, the masters increasingly acquired academic panel painting. In addition to professional icon painters, other groups of people also began to produce enamel work: craftsmen who had moved from Moscow and the cities in the north, as well as farmers from the surrounding villages and areas who began to acquire the new art of enameling.
This includes a silver cross, which is decorated with Finifit and can be attributed to the artist Peter Ivanov, as well as two enamel inlays for the book cover of the Gospels, which depict the evangelists Luke and Matthew and are all signed by Alexei Ignatjewitsch Vseswjatsko ( Алексей Игнатьевич Всесвя ) to date to the end of the 18th century. The enamel paintings from Rostov are in the Baroque style, although in the second half of the 18th century classicism gained a greater influence in the larger Russian cities .
In the first half of the 19th century, the importance of Rostov enamel works of art compared to other handicrafts increased. There were numerous enamel artists in the city at that time. They no longer created their works of art only for the Orthodox Church, but also made works for private individuals to order. Even in the smaller towns in the area there was only artistic finifit work. Numerous Finifit works were offered on the markets in Rostov, which now found their way to Moscow, the northern regions of Russia and the cities on the Volga ( Powolschje ) on an ever larger scale . Finift from Rostov also found its distribution in the Orthodox regions of southern Europe, especially in the monasteries on Mount Athos .
Over time, the style of enamel paintings broke away more and more from the canonical dogmas of traditional icon painting. In the first half of the 19th century, enamel artists turned more and more to portrait painting and the representation of everyday scenes. The panel painting was in 1860 a huge impact on the enamel painting. However, it was difficult to depict complicated, detailed scenes in enamel. The enamel artists also usually had no special experience in composing scenes with many people, which is why most of the enamel works of genre painting were only copies of paintings by various domestic and foreign artists from different epochs.
In the 19th century, the motifs of Finift painting changed. Miniature portraits and copies of color lithographs were also made. However, the pictures were shown in a simplified form in order to adapt them to the limited technical possibilities of enamel work.
With the advent of the daguerreotype (from 1835, later photography, and color printing from 1837), enamel artists in Rostov faced strong competition in the mass market for church images in the second half of the 19th century. In order to remain competitive with the cheap, mechanical series production, which imitated the Finift work, the enamel artists were therefore forced to greatly increase their production output. An enamel artist now had to produce several tens or even several hundred enamel miniatures every day. This inevitably led to a division of labor among the enamel artists. Different artists performed the different work steps:
- priming with white enamel
- transferring the outlines of a picture onto the metal using a scriber
- Painter for the individual picture details.
The masters and their assisting family members also joined forces in small cooperatives ( Artel ). The transition to the almost industrial production of the enamel work, however, had a negative impact on their artistic level. One restricted oneself to a few religious pictures, the variety of the choice of motives decreased strongly. The pictures became simpler, more primitive.
The enamel trade in Rostov was threatened with extinction under pressure from cheap competition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In search of a way out, a master school for enamel artists was established in 1911 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to revive the traditions of enamel painting.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the production of the enamel icons was stopped. Instead, portraits, women's jewelry, caskets and the like were made of enamel during the Soviet era. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, enamel production began to focus more on religious objects.
At present, the Rostovskaya Finift factory (Russian: Ростовская финифть ) is the largest producer of enamel work in Rostov. He makes jewelry and souvenirs with decorative depictions of flowers and landscapes. The products are also decorated with gold, silver, precious stones, semi-precious stones, amber, leather and precious woods. Doors, chimneys and furniture with enamel work from Rostov are also produced.
Exhibitions
Larger collections of Finift works from Rostov are exhibited in the Moscow State History Museum and the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg .
The largest finift collection is located in the Rostov-Yaroslavl State Museum of Architecture and Art in the city of Rostov, Yaroslavl Oblast. (Russian Государственный Ростово-Ярославский архитектурно-художественный музей-заповедник ). 2500 Finift miniatures from the 18th to 20th centuries are on display here.
The exhibition divides the development of the Finift into three periods:
- earlier Rostower Finift: second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. There are also influences from Ukrainian masters, especially in landscape and architectural painting on Finift.
- 19th to early 20th century: Finift art reached its final formation, its heyday and its decline.
- after the October Revolution (1917): The icon themes were banned, some artists completely stopped their Finift painting. However, the handicrafts continued to exist in cooperatives ( Artel ). In the 1930s there was an intensive search for new subjects and shapes for the Finift. In the first half of the 1930s, the enamel artists were affiliated with the Artel for invalids . In 1936 the new Artel Rebirth (Russian артель "Возрождение" ) was founded. However, during the Second World War it ceased its work. After the war, the enamel painters were assigned to the first mechanized Artel .
literature
- В. И. Борисова: Ростовская финифть. ([WI Borisowa: Rostowsaja Finift. ]), Publisher: Интербук-бизнес, [Interbuk-bisnes], 1995, ISBN 978-5766409977
- А. Зайцев-Картавцев: Ростовская финифть XVIII века. ([A. Saizew-Kartawzew: Rostowskaja finift XVIII weka. ] / Finift from Rostow from the 18th century.) 1993, Russia, ISBN 9785703400135
- Владислав Сивцов: Русская эмаль конца ХХ столетия. Ростовская финифть из частных собраний: Альбом. ([Wladislaw Siwzow: Russkaja Email konza XX stoletija. Rostowskaja finift is tschastnich sobranij: albom. / Russian enamel from the end of the 20th century. Finift from Rostow from private collections: Album.]), Publisher: Интербук-бизнес, [Interbuk-bisnes ], 2003, ISBN 5-89164-128-3
